Let's Try This Again...

Well, I definitely dropped the ball on keeping with this blog since May but I am going to try to recommit for the New Year. Fortunately, just because I haven't been writing doesn't mean I haven't been sticking with my financial goals. I have had some personal issues derail or postpone some of my plans but, overall, I'm doing pretty well!

Looking back at my 2008 Financial Goals:

I am just dollars short of saving $3,000 for my Roth IRA goal in my ING Direct savings account (paying 2.5% interest right now). I actually did reach $3,000 but transferred some out to my savings account to make that $5,000 (instead of $4,500) because of the crazy economy. I change my mind every day about whether I should go ahead and stick the $3,000 into the Roth IRA (either all or part since I am rolling over my old 401(k) and therefore won't need to worry about the $3,000 minimum buy-in!) or leave it in savings for a little more cash cushion/security. More on that to come, I suppose...

For my Roth 401(k), I just squeaked in past $5,000 this morning, as of 1/1/09! I was down about 42% for the year so, though I know I contributed a lot more than this $5,000, I'll consider this pretty good.

Student Loans are gone as of 11/4/08! This achievement was pushed back a bit by some expensive emergency travel this summer but they're gone and with rates of 4.5%, 5.0%, and 6.8%, putting my money to work for them this past year was definitely a win over anything else I could have done (at least in the short term).

My Emergency Fund is at $5,200 ($5,000 in an E*Trade account at 3.01% and $200 as a cushion in my Citibank checking account which pays no interest). I've changed the $300 cash cushion to $200 since I tend to overdraw into my cushion each month (bad!) and in a real emergency, this would likely be more accurate.

My Holiday/Gift Fund was depleted by the holidays and I think I am going to up my contributions to this a bit in 2009 and use it for Travel as well. My Moving/Computer Fund is no longer necessary as I am hoping to avoid a move in 2009 and have gotten a new (to me) computer that will suffice for now.

Now, a lot of this success was bolstered by very generous year-end holiday cash gifts but not so much so that my work didn't pay off. I have done pretty well minimizing my spending on clothes but Starbucks (and eating out in general) has been giving me a literal run for my money as the cold weather has set in. I will try to cut that down in the new year as well. So, these numbers could be better, could be worse but, all in all, I think I'm doing pretty well and am excited to see what 2009 brings financially and otherwise. Next post will be 2009 goals!